"To most of the world, it is 2015. But for all waking hours of the past three weeks, I’ve been wandering adrift in 2017. I have calendars due. Three of them. I usually do just two a year—a wall calendar and a desk planner—but for reasons I cannot now reconstruct, I allowed my publisher to convince me that what humanity will surely need, come January 2017, is a Page-A-Day calendar by me.

"It turns out 2017 will have 365 days. Why didn’t they tell me this? That means 365 pieces of art. A few days ago, I lazily/cannily realized that I can group the Saturdays and Sundays into unified weekend pages, so that knocked it down to 313.

"Now, many hours and much internal debate later—How many cartoon pigs are too many cartoon pigs in any given year? Should I include Static Electricity Day?—I count my finished pages. There are still 137 blank days."